1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to carousel apparatus, and more particularly, to a carousel apparatus that moves products in a recirculating pattern without affecting the orientation of those products. Even more particularly, this invention relates to a programmable presentation system which recirculatively presents items in a fixed orientation for assembly line operation.
2. Description of Related Art
In many industries, products are assembled by workers who remove items from bins or holders and then install those particular items on or into the products. If a worker reaches for an item from the wrong bin or container, the item has a high risk of being improperly placed. Also, in many industries, the parts and bins used by the workers can be spread out over a large area requiring extended reaching of the workers to retrieve the parts.
Programmable vertical carousel systems have been used for bulk storage of items. However, these systems often use gravity and swivel bearings, so that the bins or containers remain horizontal in an equilibrium state only because gravity holds the bins or containers below the swivel bearings as they circulate around the carousel. Thus, although the items in the vertical carousel may remain horizontal sometimes, the items may be subject to tipping back and forth or rotating. This tipping and rotational motion may cause the items to spill from the container and may prevent the presentation of heavy objects within the carousel, for the rotational motion may be too great. In sum, these swivel bearing systems lack a mechanism to compensate for rotation or tilting of the bins caused by uneven distribution of items in the bins. Additionally, these systems lack a mechanism to compensate for rotation or tilting caused by an operator pushing on one side of the bin or container.